According to a recent article in ScienceAlert, scientists have conducted experiments in mice activating a protein called protrudin that gives damaged nerve fibers the ability to regenerate.
Currently, once nerve fibers have matured, they can no longer regenerate after disease or injury. Until the potential of gene therapy was acknowledged, it was thought that optic nerve damage was irreversible.
Previous Attempts
Scientists agree that this is the most promising technology that has been studied to date.
Going back to 2016, we note that by activating a growth switch, scientists could regrow and reconnect a small portion of retinal ganglion cells. The cells were reconnected to the right region of the brain. The ganglion cells transmit visual information and form the optic nerve.
In an even earlier study of adult mice in 2012, regenerated nerves on the optic pathway partially restored what was described as ‘simple’ vision.
About the Study
Scientists are studying protrudin to determine how it supports cell growth. They learned that elevating protrudin results in central nervous system regeneration. To this end, they stimulated the nerve cells in the eyes that were cut by lasers.
The first step, using optic nerve cells that had been cultured in a lab dish, was to ramp up the production of protrudin. The result was that nerve cells were regenerated in a shorter time period than had occurred with cells that were untreated.
The next step was to treat adult mice with gene therapy. This involved an injection directly into the eye stimulating nerve cells to produce protrudin.
After several weeks, the mice that received the injection had a greater number of nerve cells in their retinas compared to the control group.
This was followed by one more experiment using whole retinas from mice that were removed two weeks after they had received protrudin boosting injections. The researchers were testing the treatment to determine if it could prevent the death of nerve cells (neuroprotective). Generally, when retinal neurons are removed they die within a few days.
The Results
Within three days the researchers noted that stimulating the production of protrudin was highly neuroprotective without loss of retinal neurons.
About The Future
The researchers point out that there is a long road ahead to restoring sight. There is no indication as yet that treating a mouse with protrudin can restore sight.
But now the teams are ready to test whether protrudin can produce an identical protective effect using human cultured retinal cells.
Other plans include a study using this technique to repair damage to neurons from injury to the spinal cord. The researchers are of the belief that stimulating protrudin could increase regeneration in a damaged spinal cord.
Additionally, the therapy could lead to treatment for diseases such as glaucoma. It is a group of eye diseases that causes vision loss through damage to the optic nerve leading to the brain.
